How Many Americans Travel Abroad for Medical Care? What the Data Actually Shows

Federal surveillance data puts the number at roughly 1.4 million Americans traveling internationally for medical care each year, according to the CDC Yellow Book, 2026 edition. That headline figure sits at the top of a wide range. A 2021 population-based study published in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology found a weighted prevalence of 1.32% among 93,492 U.S. respondents to the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, while trade data from the U.S. International Trade Commission counts as few as 150,000 to 320,000 outbound trips per year where healthcare is the stated reason. The gap between those numbers is not a contradiction. It is a window into how outbound medical travel actually works, who is doing it, and why the total keeps rising.

How many Americans travel abroad for medical care each year?

Roughly 1.4 million Americans travel abroad for medical care each year, according to the CDC Yellow Book, 2026 edition, which draws on federal surveillance data and industry estimates. Population-based studies suggest the real figure could be higher. The Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System recorded a weighted prevalence of 1.32%, and among the 93,492 respondents in the 2021 Cha et al. study of 11 states and territories, 0.55% reported traveling internationally for care in the prior year, most commonly for dental work.

The counts diverge because each source measures a different slice. Federal travel-purpose surveys catch only patients who list healthcare as the primary reason for the trip. Border-crossing analyses capture more, including patients who combine care with visiting family or vacation. Industry estimates from groups like Patients Beyond Borders fold in clinic-reported patient counts, which push totals higher still. Every methodology agrees the number falls in the hundreds of thousands to low millions and has grown consistently since the mid-2010s.

What counts as medical tourism?

Medical tourism is travel across an international border for the primary purpose of receiving medical care. The CDC defines it broadly enough to include elective procedures, dental work, cosmetic surgery, fertility treatment, and specialty care not available or affordable at home. A patient who combines care with a vacation counts. A patient returning to a country of origin for treatment counts. A patient flying specifically to receive a procedure counts. What does not count is emergency care received during travel undertaken for another reason.

That definition matters because it shapes the numbers. A retiree who drives to Mexico for dental implants is a medical tourist. A snowbird who books a clinic visit while already in Panama is one too. Anyone flying to Turkey specifically for a hair transplant is included. Excluding accidental care but including planned care is what produces the range of estimates you see across sources.

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Where do Americans go, and what do they get done?

The BRFSS surveillance data offers the clearest window into destinations and procedures. Of 517 U.S. respondents who reported medical travel in 2016, Mexico accounted for 41% of trips, more than any other country by a wide margin. Dental care dominated the procedure mix at 55% of all treatments reported, followed by unspecified procedures (20%), medical treatment for illness (6%), and cosmetic surgery (3%). The CDC Yellow Book adds Canada, the Caribbean, and countries in South America as the other most common destinations for U.S. medical tourists.

Geography drives most of the destination choice. For Americans in the Sun Belt, Mexico is drivable. For East Coast patients, the Caribbean and Central America are short flights. For patients willing to travel further for lower prices or more specialized care, Thailand, Turkey, India, and Colombia are common. The procedure mix also skews toward what U.S. insurance does not cover: cosmetic surgery, most dental work, elective bariatric surgery, and IVF often fall outside standard health-plan benefits, so patients pay out of pocket at whatever price they can find. That is where the cost differential does its work.

Why do so many Americans go?

Cost is the headline reason, and the gap is large. A single dental implant costs $3,500 to $5,000 in the United States. In Mexico, the same procedure typically runs $600 to $900, a savings of 70 to 80%. Savings of 50 to 70% are common across most elective procedures once travel is factored in, according to industry benchmarks compiled by Patients Beyond Borders.

But cost alone does not explain the pattern. In the BRFSS analysis, medical tourism rates were higher among Hispanic and non-white respondents and higher among adults without current health insurance. That points to a second driver: for patients who are uninsured or underinsured, going abroad is often the only affordable option, not an upgrade over U.S. care. A third driver is procedure availability. Some patients travel because a specific technique or medication is approved abroad but not in the United States. Others travel because U.S. providers will not perform a procedure that a patient's insurance will not cover for someone with their health profile. Fertility treatment, gender-affirming care, and certain stem-cell therapies fall in this category.

How Americans compare in the global market

Americans are one of the largest outbound patient populations, but they are not the only one. India welcomed roughly 7.3 million inbound medical tourists in 2024, the highest total on record. The global medical tourism market reached approximately $47 billion in 2024 according to industry analyses, with a projected compound annual growth rate of 17.8% through 2034. Every credible forecast projects Americans to remain a top-three outbound patient population through the end of the decade.

Sources: BRFSS surveillance data (2016), CDC Yellow Book (2026), Patients Beyond Borders industry benchmarks, JCI accredited-organization directory.

Is the number growing?

Every data source agrees the total is up from a decade ago, but the trajectory is uneven. The COVID-19 pandemic cut outbound medical travel from roughly 780,000 U.S. patients in 2019 to about 290,000 in 2020 according to Global Wellness Institute estimates cited by Forbes. Volume has since rebounded, and by most industry accounts had exceeded pre-pandemic levels by 2024.

Two factors are accelerating growth. First, U.S. healthcare costs continue to outpace wage growth, widening the affordability gap for uninsured and high-deductible patients. Second, information asymmetry has narrowed: patients can now find English-speaking clinics with published accreditation records, transparent pricing, and structured aftercare, which lowers the perceived risk of going abroad. Both trends push the annual U.S. outbound number closer to the top of the estimate range, not the bottom.

What this means if you are considering it

If you are one of the roughly 1.4 million Americans who will travel for care this year, the same data that describes the phenomenon can help you avoid the parts of it that go badly. Dental and cosmetic work make up the majority of outbound travel precisely because they are low-complication procedures with a well-mapped set of destination clinics. Higher-complexity procedures like cardiac surgery, orthopedic replacement, and organ transplantation carry more risk when performed abroad, and the CDC's Yellow Book specifically recommends that patients evaluate accreditation (particularly JCI accreditation), continuity of aftercare, and complication protocols before they book.

For a step-by-step walkthrough of that evaluation, see our guides to planning your first medical tourism trip, whether medical tourism is safe, and the pillar guide to medical tourism for Americans.